Transplant recipient prizes 'second chance'

October 11, 2006

Bob Lanchsweerdt woke up one morning two years ago, looked at himself in the mirror and knew he was in big trouble. "I was the color of my coffee table," says the retired South Bend police officer. "Sort of a yellow-brown." He knew why. "It was the alcoholism," he admits. His liver was shot. And Bob was smart enough to know he needed a transplant a lot worse than he needed a drink. He also knew that transplant lists don't usually cater to drunks. But with the help of Dr. Oliver Gilliam, a local gastroenterologist, Bob decided his life was worth saving. "I went through a Madison Center program for eight weeks and then attended 10 AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings," says the 60-year-old father of three and grandfather of four. "And I haven't taken a drink since." It wasn't easy. He had started drinking in his 20s and stayed with it through his 33-year career as a cop. "I never missed work because of it, and I never was drinking on duty, but even my kids knew I was a drunk -- a happy drunk, but a drunk," he says. Bill Moor Commentary It helped to ruin his marriage and didn't help his relationship with his children. "Thank God all three of them have stayed away from the booze," he says. He's not making any excuses, but he admits that the pressures of being a police officer may have helped lead him to the bottle. "And I guess when my buddy (and fellow officer) Tom DeRue was murdered in 1974 while responding to a robbery, the drinking might have gotten worse," he adds. (Bob was also on his way to the scene when he heard DeRue give a mayday over the radio. He eventually arrested the killer.) Then it probably went up another notch after he retired in 2002. "I would get up and have a glass a wine or two, maybe drink a six-pack of beer during the day and then have a few vodkas at night." It all caught up with him. And suddenly, he was facing some dire consequences. "But he had a tough heart and the will to live," Gilliam says. "I also told him how upsetting it was when another patient had ruined his liver and then resumed drinking after his transplant. "That liver could have gone to someone else." Bob said he wouldn't let the good doctor or others down that way. So after Bob had kept himself clean and sober for almost a year, he was allowed on the transplant list in May 2005. Even without the drinking, his health continued to deteriorate. He needed blood transfusions every two weeks, he lost nearly 100 pounds and he could hardly get out of his chair. "Jan (Iverson, his fiancée) was taking care of me, and I think the strain on her was the reason she had a heart attack last October," Bob says. She recovered. It looked as if Bob might not. "At that point, he had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel," Gilliam admits. Literally days away from death, he finally took the call from IU Medical Center in Indianapolis just before Christmas nine months ago. A liver that was a match had become available. The operation was touch and go, and it was later followed by surgeries for bowel and intestine obstructions, but Bob survived. He doesn't know anything yet about the donor. "And what can ever you do to properly thank a person and his or her family for your life?" he wonders. He hopes eventually to be able to thank them in some way. He has been busy thanking others -- Gilliam and his staff, his fiancée, Jan, his sister and brother-in-law, Barb and Mike Lutomski, and all the medical personnel who have helped him in his recovery. "I know I would be letting down an awful lot of people if I ever went back to drinking," he says. "But that isn't going to happen." He says he doesn't miss it nor does he even get an urge to have one. "I go into the BK Club and shout out, 'Give me a shot and a beer,' just to stir things up," he says. "Somebody usually says that I'm going to have to fight him before that happens. Then they see that I am kidding. "I'm good with a Diet Pepsi these days." Bob is still healing from four surgeries, he has gained more weight than he would like and he needs a hernia repaired. Yet he feels wonderful. "I am not going to blow this second chance at life." Bill Moor's column appears on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at bmoor@sbtinfo.com, or write him at the South Bend Tribune, 225 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN 46626; (574) 235-6072.